To read part one of day nine, click here.

I tried to move further away from the opening, but Tullia was blocking my way. When I pushed at her, she just rolled closer to me. I gave up and rolled onto my side, trying to fall asleep.

The next thing I knew, it was six in the morning and the sun was shining. A few seconds later I heard Bruce’s watch alarm from across the clearing and I shook Tullia to wake her up.

I asked Sarah Margaret to wake Maggie up – she and I needed to get the bear hang down so we could eat breakfast. I packed up my sleeping stuff and headed down to the kitchen area.

Fifteen minutes later, Maggie still wasn’t there. I asked Bruce to help me with the bear hang – we needed to get the food down so the cooks could get started. He came over to the tree and started undoing knots that I hadn’t even known were there. I was really glad he came to help. 😀

We got the food down and the cooks came and helped us sort through the bags to find breakfast. We were having bagels with cream cheese and apple butter, and I was excited! That’s what we had eaten the first morning, and it was one of my favorite breakfasts.

Everyone ate quickly, knowing that we were going to have a long day that day. We had a long way to trek, and a couple of creeks to cross, so we had to get moving.

We cleaned up and packed all of our stuff up, everyone ready to go. The LOD’s (Leaders of the Day) told us which way to go and we started walking.

It wasn’t long before we reached our first creek – it was less than ten minutes after we started walking. We could hear it long before that though, and it was all I could do to not start panicking.

When I saw it though, I couldn’t stop myself. That body of water in front of me wasn’t a small creek like I had been told – it was almost a river. The rain had almost doubled its size, Katie said, and we were going to have to cross it anyway.

While they figured out who was going to do what to get all of us across, I sat down on the ground, closed my eyes, and tried to breathe slowly. It didn’t work.

Bobby came and sat down by me.

“Are you ok, Dora? You don’t look that great.”

“No, I’m not ok. We have to cross this?”

“You’ll be fine. We were on bigger rivers than this a day or two ago, and you were great at it!”

“But I wasn’t having to wade through them with my pack on my back. And I had a life vest. This… this is scary.”

Click here to read the next part of Day Nine.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*